The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn (57 page)

According to John Gray in “Frank Grouard: Kanaka Scout or Mulatto Renegade?” Grouard’s mother was from the Tuamotu Islands; according to Richard Hardorff in “The Frank Grouard Genealogy,” she was from an island off Tahiti. White Bull speaks of Sitting Bull’s relationship with Grouard in ww box 105, notebook 8, WCC. On “Yellow Hair,” the supposed child of Custer and Monahsetah, see “My Heritage, My Search” by Gail Kelly-Custer (who claims to be descended from Yellow Hair, also known as Josiah Custer) in
Custer and His Times,
book 5, edited by John Hart, pp. 268–81. On the phenomenon of the “squaw man,” see Stanley Vestal’s
New Sources,
pp. 312–13, as well as Walter Boyes’s “White Renegades Living with the Hostiles Go Up Against Custer,” pp. 11–19, 31.

The 1872 description of a “Sandwich Islander, called Frank” is cited by John Gray in “Frank Grouard,” p. 64. Grouard’s comments about Sitting Bull are in Joe DeBarthe’s
Life and Adventures of Frank Grouard
(subsequently referred to as DeBarthe), pp. 159, 387, 386. On Sitting Bull’s use of warrior societies to create “channels of influence both to the chiefs and elders and to the key brokers of warrior opinion,” see Bray,
Crazy Horse,
p. 177.

Utley writes of how the opening of the Milk River Agency represented a conscious attempt to undercut Sitting Bull’s influence; Utley also discusses the small number of lodges remaining with the Hunkpapa leader during the winter of 1872–73 in
Lance and Shield,
p. 97. According to Catherine Price in
The Oglala People, 1841–1879,
“The
tiyospaye
was commonly composed of ten or more bilaterally extended families,” p. 2. Grouard describes his falling out with Sitting Bull in DeBarthe, pp. 109–13. White Bull describes Sitting Bull’s courageous pipe-smoking demonstration in 1872, ww box 105, notebook 24; WCC. Grouard was with the Lakota along the Yellowstone during their encounter with the Seventh Cavalry in 1873 and remarked on the playing of the regimental band, DeBarthe, p. 114. Barrows’s description of the “stirring Irish air” was in the Sept. 9, 1873,
New York Tribune
.

Standing Bear’s memory of Sitting Bull’s comparison of the Black Hills to a food pack is in DeMallie’s
The Sixth Grandfather,
p. 164. Bray has an excellent account of the U.S. government’s “general uncertainty about the region’s significance in a time of unprecedented crisis,”
Crazy Horse,
p. 187. Grouard speaks of his difficulties readjusting to a white diet in DeBarthe, p. 88; he also tells of his troubles relearning the English language, p. 175, and the varying reactions of Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull to his return with a peace delegation, pp. 173–74. Hyde in
Red Cloud’s Folk
writes of Little Big Man’s confrontation with the peace commissioners, pp. 243–44.

John Gray in
Centennial Campaign
cites the Watkins letter recommending military force, as well as Sheridan’s description of the Jan. 31, 1876, deadline as a “good joke,” pp. 28–33. Grouard tells of his role as government scout during the winter and spring of 1876 in DeBarthe, pp. 181–88; he also speaks of carrying “a map of the country in my mind,” p. 154. Wooden Leg described the army’s attack on his village in Marquis,
Wooden Leg,
pp. 161–67. John Gray has created a useful chronology of the village’s movements that winter and spring (largely based on Wooden Leg’s account) in
Centennial Campaign,
pp. 321–34. Wooden Leg describes Sitting Bull’s reception of the Cheyenne refugees in Marquis,
Wooden Leg,
pp. 170–72, as well as how Sitting Bull had “come now into admiration by all Indians,” p. 178. Vestal relates Crazy Horse’s explanation of the soldiers’ behavior in
Warpath,
p. 182; Vestal also discusses the dangers of staying on the reservation, writing, “it was
so
convenient to kill friendlies,” in
Sitting Bull,
p. 69. Wooden Leg speaks of Sitting Bull’s insistence that the warriors hunt instead of fight in Marquis,
Wooden Leg,
pp. 179, 185. Kill Eagle’s account of being forced to join Sitting Bull’s village is in W. A. Graham’s
The Custer Myth,
p. 49.

One Bull describes Sitting Bull’s activities during the 1876 sun dance in box 104, folder 6, and box 110, folder 8, WCC. Grouard’s description of the “scarlet blanket” is in DeBarthe, p. 120. Raymond DeMallie in “ ‘These Have No Ears’: Narrative and Ethnohistorical Method” provides a probing analysis of how Vestal/Campbell interpreted and inevitably adjusted the accounts of Sitting Bull’s sun dance he received from both One Bull and White Bull, pp. 518–20. For a reference to the Rock Writing Bluff, see DeMallie’s
The Sixth Grandfather,
p. 198. Concerning the consequences of not following Sitting Bull’s injunction about the spoils, Ernie LaPointe, Sitting Bull’s great-grandson, says, “When you don’t follow a vision to the end, you will suffer,” in
The Authorized Biography of Sitting Bull,
part 2.

Chapter 5:
The Scout

Judge Bacon’s deathbed words about Custer having been “born a soldier” are in Frost,
General Custer’s Libbie,
p. 150, as is Libbie’s plea to Custer that “we must die together,” p. 126. Custer tells of his encounter with the psychic in an Apr. 17, 1866, letter to Libbie in the Merington Papers at the New York Public Library, cited by Barnett in
Touched by Fire,
pp. 59–60. Custer’s letter to Libbie about how “troublesome and embarrassing babies would be to us” is in Frost,
General Custer’s Libbie,
p. 178. Custer’s Jan. 31, 1876, telegram to General Terry about his impending bankruptcy is in the Custer Papers, NA. Custer told of how he spent the night writing his article for
Galaxy
magazine in a June 9, 1876, letter to Libbie in
Boots and Saddles,
p. 270. Edgerly wrote of Custer’s dinner of bread drenched in syrup in an Oct. 10, 1877, letter to Libbie in Merington, p. 302. Terry described his wet return to the Powder River encampment in his
Diary,
p. 21. Godfrey wrote of how the officers speculated about why Custer was not given the scout in his
Field Diary,
edited by Stewart, p. 6. Kellogg claimed that Custer had declined the scout in an article in the June 21, 1876,
New York Herald
. Godfrey described the difficulties of training the pack mules in his diary, Stewart, p. 5. My description of the Gatling gun is based largely on Julia Keller’s
Mr. Gatling’s Terrible Marvel,
pp. 173–206.

The scouts’ description of Reno as “the man with the dark face” is in Libby, p. 73. Benteen describes his confrontation with Reno in a Jan. 16, 1892, letter to Goldin in John Carroll’s
Benteen-Goldin Letters,
p. 209. My descriptions of Reno’s service on the munitions board and his actions upon learning of his wife’s death, as well as his run-in with Thomas Weir, are based primarily on Ronald Nichols’s
In Custer’s Shadow,
pp. 116–20, 133–35, 136, 148. Custer told of how Terry requested that he lead the column to the Yellowstone in a June 11, 1876, letter to Libbie in Merington, p. 302. The engineer Edward Maguire calculated that the column had covered a total of 318.5 miles, averaging 15.9 miles per day, in John Carroll’s
General Custer . . . The Federal View,
p. 42. Hanson describes how the appearance of the column transformed the once-placid banks of the Yellowstone, p. 245. In a June 21, 1876, article in the
New York Herald,
Kellogg wrote about the temporary trading post at the Powder River encampment; the Arikara scouts also described the post, in Libby, pp. 71–72; the scouts also recounted how the interpreter Fred Gerard told them they could each have a single drink of whiskey, Libby, p. 207, and how much they enjoyed the playing of the regimental band, Libby, p. 73.

John Gray quotes Terry’s Feb. 21, 1876, letter to Sheridan in
Centennial Campaign
, p. 40. Custer’s June 12, 1876, letter to Libbie describing how the dogs slept with him in his tent is in
Boots and Saddles,
p. 271. Dr. Paulding’s remarks concerning Gibbon’s lack of initiative are in “A Surgeon at the Little Big Horn: The Letters of Dr. Holmes O. Paulding,” edited by Thomas Buecker, p. 139. Benteen’s June 12–13, 1876, letter to his wife, Frabbie, describing the languid scene inside his tent along the Yellowstone is in
Camp Talk,
edited by John Carroll, p. 14; along with Custer, Benteen feared that Reno’s scout might unnecessarily “precipitate things” and ruin an otherwise excellent opportunity to attack the Indians. Reno’s note to Terry in which he says he can tell him “where the Indians are
not
” is quoted in Gray’s
Centennial Campaign,
p. 136.

On the Crows’ decision to align themselves with the American government, see Frederick Hoxie’s
Parading Through History,
pp. 60–125, as well as Jonathan Lear’s provocative
Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation
. John Gray writes extensively of Mitch Boyer’s background in
Custer’s Last Campaign,
pp. 3–123; he also cites Boyer’s comments about how the Lakota “can’t get even now,” p. 396. My thanks to Neal Smith for identifying the binds on Boyer’s headgear as blue jays, specifically Steller’s jays. On Reno’s scout, see James Willert’s
Little Big Horn Diary,
pp. 130–31, and Gray’s
Custer’s Last Campaign,
p. 132. Terry described his strategy prior to the Reno scout in a June 12, 1876, letter: “a double movement, one part of the force going up the Tongue to near its head waters then crossing to the head waters of the Rosebud, & descending that stream; the other portion joining Gibbon’s troops & proceeding up the last named river,”
Terry Letters,
p. 19. On Reno’s previous experience fighting Indians, see Nichols,
In Custer’s Shadow,
p. 37.

Mark Kellogg wrote of his voyage down the Yellowstone on the
Far West
in the June 21, 1876,
New York Herald
. For a useful biography of Kellogg, see Sandy Barnard’s
I Go with Custer.
Custer wrote to Libbie about the drowning of Sergeant Fox and the temporary loss of the letter bag in a June 17, 1876, letter in
Boots and Saddles,
p. 273. See also Willert’s account of Fox’s drowning in
Little Big Horn Diary,
pp. 128–29. Benteen also wrote about the incident in a June 14, 1876, letter to his wife, Frabbie, in John Carroll’s
Camp Talk,
p. 15. Libbie’s letter to Custer in which she says, “All your letters are scorched,” is in Merington, p. 303. John Gray details who was left at the Powder River supply depot in
Centennial Campaign,
p. 129. In his
Field Diary
Terry wrote, “Band of 7th to remain at depot,” p. 22. According to James Wilber, “Custer wanted to take the band beyond Powder River, but Terry would not consent to it,” in
Custer in ’76,
edited by Kenneth Hammer, p. 149. Stanley Hoig in
The Battle of the Washita
describes how the band’s instruments froze at the onset of the attack, p. 128. According to James Henley, “Custer’s orders to have the band play ‘Garry Owen’ when about to charge [at the Washita] was ever a subject of ridicule in the regiment,” in
Camp on Custer,
edited by Bruce Liddic and Paul Harbaugh, pp. 36–37.

According to Godfrey, “No one carried the saber,” in W. A. Graham,
The Custer Myth,
p. 346. On DeRudio’s decision to bring his saber, see Hammer,
Custer in ’76
: “DeRudio says he was the only man in the regiment who carried a saber,” p. 87. Kellogg wrote of the abandoned Indian village on the Tongue in the June 21, 1876,
New York Herald
. Custer’s letter to Libbie about finding the trooper’s charred skull is in
Boots and Saddles
, p. 274. Red Star described Custer’s examination of the skull in Libby, in which he also recounted Isaiah Dorman’s involvement in the desecration of the Lakota graves, pp. 75–76. Maguire provided a detailed description of the embalmed Lakota warrior, in John Carroll’s
General Custer . . . The Federal View,
p. 43. Stanislaw Roy told of how the soldiers of McIntosh’s G Company were warned that they “might be sorry” for the desecration in Hammer,
Custer in ’76,
p. 111. Boston Custer’s letter detailing the pillage is in Merington, p. 306. Godfrey’s description of the same is in “Custer’s Last Battle,” in W. A. Graham,
The Custer Myth,
p. 129. Peter Thompson related Gerard’s pronouncement that “the vengeance of God . . . had overtaken” the Custer clan for despoiling the Lakota graves, in his
Account,
p. 46. Custer’s letter to Libbie describing the scene at night around the fire is in
Boots and Saddles,
p. 274. John Gray describes Reno’s activities along the Rosebud on June 17, 1876, in
Centennial Campaign
, pp. 133–34. Peter Thompson’s description of how the Indians’ travois tore up the ground is in his
Account,
p. 8. In a June 21, 1876, letter to Libbie, Custer wrote, “The scouts reported that they could have overtaken the village in one day and a half,” in
Boots and Saddles,
pp. 274–75. Forked Horn’s words of warning to Reno are in Libby, p. 70.

Chapter 6:
The Blue Pencil Line

George Bird Grinnell details Little Hawk’s scout up the Rosebud in
The Fighting Cheyennes,
pp. 282–84; he writes of Little Hawk’s reputation as a practical joker in
The Cheyenne Indians: Their History and Ways of Life,
p. 124. On the movements of Sitting Bull’s village, see John Gray’s
Centennial Campaign,
p. 327. Wooden Leg told of how the heralds warned “young men, leave the soldiers alone” in Marquis,
Wooden Leg,
pp. 198–99. Grinnell wrote of how Little Hawk and his scouts “howl like wolves, to notify the people that something had been seen,” in
The Fighting Cheyennes,
p. 284. White Bull spoke of how approximately a thousand young warriors slipped away at night for the Rosebud and how Sitting Bull was with him at the beginning of the battle, box 105, notebook 24, WCC.